Our Foundation & Future
Our Foundation
NewLife Church was started in 2001 to declare the life changing message given in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ , he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come!”. In fact, this message is carved into the cornerstone of our building. After meeting in various homes, schools and rental facilities, the church moved into its present location in winter of 2006.
We have truly been blessed with a strong foundation of grace and truth.
Our Future
We continually seek to be more like Jesus, full of grace & truth and embrace the amazing power of the gospel of grace – offered freely to us who deserve it least because Christ paid our sin-debt in full on the cross.
We believe each person is called to be a part of something greater than ourselves. We believe that Christ has invited us into relationship and to the mission of the gospel – to become disciples and make disciples of Jesus. Our desire is to offer an environment for each person to grow deeper in knowledge of Him and His grace each day.
The methods to achieve these goals may evolve over time but our foundation of grace & truth in Jesus will remain the same.
Mission & Vision
Our foundation and focus--it drives and directs why we do what we do.
OUR MISSION
Embracing each person with the life-changing grace and truth of Jesus.
OUR VISION
Bringing the fingerprint of Jesus to the SE Polk area.
Our Beliefs
We believe in the Triune God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – one eternal God known in three eternal persons. He is the creator of all things, he is all powerful, all knowing, unchanging, and above all–Holy. He is good and the prime example of a good Father.
Every person who believes (trusts) in Jesus as Savior immediately and forever receives forgiveness of all their sins, the free gift of eternal life and becomes a child of God. We are saved by God’s grace which we accept through faith. Our salvation is based solely on trusting what Christ did for us rather than anything we have done or will do, making our salvation eternally secure.
When we believe in Jesus, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit who indwells us. He is deposit of what is to come, gives gifts for service, assures us we are God’s children, bears fruit in us and through us and more. Our call is to follow the Spirit’s leading.
We believe the Bible, the Old and New Testaments, is the Word of God, that it is accurately passed to us, and that it is our final authority on all things. We exercise great humility in interpreting and understanding Scripture, but do so with confidence in them and the Holy Spirit’s ability to guide us in understanding and applying his Word.
We all have inherited a sin nature from our first father, Adam, causing us to fall short of God’s glory, and be estranged from him. We all experience the consequences of sin and are individually accountable before God for our own sin.
We believe that God created the world and everything in it, including humans, in the six-day period described in the first two chapters of Genesis. Everything he created was good. However, as a result of the rebellion of angels and man against God, all creation was marred.
Satan and demons are personal beings in rebellion against God who seek to lead the whole world astray from him. Satan seeks to prevent people from hearing and responding to the gospel, tempts people to sin and brings accusation against God’s people. He is a powerful, but defeated, foe. Through Christ’s death and resurrection all believers have authority over him and his lies. He will ultimately be cast into the eternal fire of hell.
Jesus calls us to a life of following Him and becoming more like Him in thought, word and deed through obedience to Him. Doing so often leads to hardships, but also invites God’s blessing into our lives. Not following him does not result in losing our salvation, but does result in loss of joy, brings temporal consequences (discipline) and interruption of fellowship with Him and His people.
Baptism and communion are visible statements of God’s grace in our lives. We practice “Believer” baptism – the immersion in water of the believer based on their faith in Christ. We encourage, but do not require, baptism for partnership in NewLife Church. We offer Communion (The Lord’s Supper) each month for believers to corporately remember what Christ has done for us.
We believe that all human life, from the unborn to the elderly, must be valued and cherished. Every person is made in the image and likeness of God and is in need of His love and grace given through His people.
God has given marriage and family to be a source of blessing and protection. We affirm that God’s plan for marriage is a man and woman in a lifelong covenant. The sexual act is given exclusively in this covenant of marriage. The Scriptures make no allowance for “same-gender marriage” or sexual expression. Because of this and because we view a wedding as a sacred event, our pastors do not participate in and our facility is not available for “same sex weddings.”
We encourage those in the covenant of marriage to do everything possible to preserve and grow their marriage relationship. However, we acknowledge that though it is not His desire for us, God does make allowance for divorce because of the hardness of people’s hearts. We are called to care for the orphan and widow, and by extension, to assist the single parent. Chaste singleness is blessed by God, especially for serving in God’s kingdom.
God loves you so much that He gave His one and only son who came, died and rose from the dead so that we can have eternal life. We invite you to watch this brief video to help you understand how you can have new life through faith in Jesus!
The church is made up of all who have trusted in Christ as Savior. Our two-fold mission is to 1) teach, minister to, encourage and grow believers; and 2) reach the world with the good news of Jesus through verbal proclamation of the gospel and humble service. We do so as individuals, a congregation and in partnership with others.
Because we are unable to remove the guilt of our sin to return to fellowship with him, God the Father sent God the Son to save us. On the cross, Jesus the sinless one became sin for us, paying the full price for our sin and offering us the free gift of righteousness.
Jesus will return first “in the air.” At that time, the dead in Christ will be raised and believers still in the present body will be changed and caught up with them to meet the Lord. Later, believers will return to earth with Christ who will establish his millennial kingdom on earth. At the end of the Millennium, the devil will lead a final rebellion which God will crush, leading to the final judgment. Finally, God will make the new heaven, the new earth and bring the New Jerusalem to earth.